From a drink made by slaves, Brazil's most popular alcoholic beverage, the cachaca, emerges as a top export product winning millions of fans around the globe.
Today Brazil produces more than 475 million gallons of cachaca every year...making the sweet sipper one of the country's top exports. Katharine Jackson reports.
SOUNDBITE: Murilo Albernaz, Brazil's Cachaca Producers Association President, saying (Portuguese):"Cachaca has extremely peculiar characteristics. It is so different from the other distilled beverages produced worldwide, that it (cachaca) is gaining buyers and admirers. The amount of tourists who come to Brazil today and take cachaca, who are eager to take away cachaça, and the amount of Brazilians who visit abroad and take cachaca (is huge). This is allowing the cachaca to gain prominence."
